Cascade: No. 80, Spring/Summer 2012

In Memoriam

Cascade remembers two leaders of community development financial institutions (CDFIs) in Delaware and New Jersey who died in February 2012 within a week of each other.

Doris R. Schnider, president of the Delaware Community Investment Corporation (DCIC) from 1994 to 2011, died February 7, 2012. She originally came to Delaware as a consultant and organized the DCIC as a multibank lending and equity investment consortium. She had previously run similar consortia, SAMCO in California and the North Carolina Community Investment Corporation.

Doris R. Schnider

During her tenure at the DCIC, Schnider created or preserved 5,422 affordable housing units in Delaware through loans and investments totaling about $354 million. Of this amount, the DCIC raised over $180 million in equity that it deployed in 44 developments, producing 3,000 rental units. The DCIC also financed charter schools and nonprofit-sponsored ventures for the rehabilitation of theaters and art centers.

Schnider received several awards, including the Wilmington Award and the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders’ Star Award.

R. Michael Diemer, executive director of the Cooperative Business Assistance Corporation (CBAC), died February 2, 2012. He joined CBAC in 1995 when CBAC provided loans and technical assistance to small businesses in Camden, NJ. During his tenure at CBAC, which became a CDFI in 2003, Diemer expanded the organization’s lending and technical assistance to seven counties in New Jersey.

R. Michael Diemer

Before he joined CBAC, Diemer was a commercial lender with banks in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Earlier, from 1969 to 1987, he had been a district director for Farmers Home Administration (now USDA Rural Development) in Vermont. In this position, he monitored a $500 million portfolio and supervised 52 staff members in 10 offices.

Diemer was a past president of the South Jersey Chapter of the Risk Management Association and was a chairman of the advisory board of the Camden division of the Camden County Regional Chamber of Commerce.